Tool of North America distributed iPads to a select group of agency creatives and producers at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival this past June. But it wasn’t so much the medium but the message that the production house was sending as each iPad was loaded with four interactive live-action stories that the agency artisans could affect, advance, change the pace of, link to related info and backgrounds for, and in some cases even change the outcome of and control.
While there was much advance buzz regarding how the publishing industry was preparing for the iPad’s introduction, so too in a lower profile yet just as serious manner had been the folks at Tool–including executive producer Brian Latt, and digital exec producer Dustin Callif–who saw the device as an ideal platform for a new brand of storytelling. And they put the power to create and tell those stories in the hands of five of their live-action directors: Tom Routson who conceived of and directed the interactive short Triangle; Sean Ehringer who turned out Jerry and Sarah; Geordie Stephens who conjured up The Most Interesting Couple in Britain; and Erich Joiner and Jason Zada who teamed on All Ends, Ends All.
All these Tool directors have agency creative pedigrees. Their iPad shorts reside under the Touching Stories project banner. As part of its preparation prior to Apple’s iPad launch, Tool linked up with technology partner Domani Studios which laid the groundwork for being able to integrate live action with web components and the iPad’s multi-touch and accelerometer features, bringing user interactivity to the fore.
Cues in the short films prompt viewers to touch, shake or turn the iPad to access backstories, cause action to progress, or impact the developing storyline in one way or another. Domani’s technological acumen yielded apps which help make the stories a custom made experience for the iPad. “We’re big believers in custom constructing stories specific to platform,” related Callif. “In some camps the school of thought is to shoot a spot and repurpose it. I understand the reasoning for that in today’s economy. But we’re not of that mindset. We want to create something different so that users can intuitively interact with the content on a specific platform.”
Latt explained that Tool’s decision to invest in the ambitious iPad project “sprung from our desire to give our directors more creative storytelling opportunities, to realize how they could connect with audiences in a whole new way. And while our directors don’t function as a collective, they are all friends and we found them sharing ideas and executions back and forth with each other. It’s a way for our guys to look into and help shape the future of storytelling.”
For Callif, another important marketplace dynamic was simply “to get the conversation going so that agencies could see what could be done on the iPad, to get them thinking even more about how they could tap into it to tell stories, build brands, engage audiences.”
Latt shared that he initially envisioned his five accomplished live-action comedy directors coming up with a handful of funny pieces. “As it turned out, the end product was entirely different than what I expected. For example, Tom created a very powerful story with a strong narrative thread that wasn’t at all comedy driven.”
Here’s a rundown of the four shorts:
• Routson’s strong narrative Triangle is a choose-your-own ending tale of greed and betrayal in which a priest and a tattooed roughneck vie for the affections of a beautiful young woman. At the same time, all three are competing for a suitcase full of money. The adventure ends with someone laying dead in a vacant lot while someone else walks away with the cash–only the viewer (who becomes a video game player of sorts) decides who survives.
• Joiner and Zada’s collaboration, All Ends, Ends All, presents an interactive first-person experience. A character wakes up inside what turns out to be a car trunk. On-screen prompts help the app user burst out of the trunk, run from his enemies and seek shelter among some dilapidated roadside buildings. The chase requires aggressive tilting back and forth of the iPad. If the player doesn’t move fast enough, the character is caught and done in. There’s even a scene in which the user can dial a phone in a roadside booth to seek help.
• Ehringer’s Jerry and Sarah shows freak experiences happening to the couple at home. Turns out it’s an iPad user who’s messing with them and their environment. They discover that they’re being toyed with and break through the so-called fourth wall to address the annoyances.
• And Stephens’ The Most Interesting Couple in Britain is a Monty Python-esque over-the-top comedy. Pop-up menus chart different touch screen pathways along which to steer the action.
Deep prep
Setting the stage for the iPad shorts goes back considerably further than the actual pre-pro and exploratory work for the project itself. Tool has built an infrastructure bringing its mainstay live-action commercial production together with digital expertise, starting with the hiring of Callif about a year and a half ago. The former co-owner of digital agency Spacedog, Callif brought extensive digital media project experience to Tool. He has helped to develop a digital directing roster at Tool (which includes such notables as Carlos Ulloa and Grant Skinner), complementing and at times working with their live-action counterparts.
A prime example of this kind of collaboration was Nike’s “Staring Battle” for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., which teamed live-action helmer Zada with interactive director Skinner. The two co-directed interactive units, banners and website content for Nike, a centerpiece being the mesh of Zada’s live-action footage with webcam motion sensing technology devised by Skinner.
The result: a real-time staring battle within an ESPN banner showing Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson responding to fans staring at him. This stare down lines up a visitor’s eyes with the ESPN webcam, causing Peterson to react accordingly, often triumphantly if a fan blinked first.
Infusing live action with interactive technology also played a integral role in making what normally would have been a conventional music video something much more–Cold War Kids interactive clip “I’ve Seen Enough” directed by Tool live-action helmer Sam Jones. The video was honored with a 2010 AICP Show emerging media Next Award. Showcasing Tool’s live-action and interactive versatility on the awards competition circuit, Tool also produced a ’10 AICP Show honoree in the Advertising Excellence/International category–MTV’s “Bird” directed by Jose Antonio Prat for agency la comunidad.
Latt said that for a production company to gain recognition from this year’s AICP Show in both a mainstream Advertising Excellence category as well as the Next proceedings represented quite an honor in and of itself. “It speaks to the range of the comany,” he said. “And that range is growing as we have our digital people working with and educating our live-action filmmakers, and our film people helping our digital talent.”
Latt noted that Tool’s orientation is to work closely with ad agencies on all platforms from the traditional to the new, and the campaign integration thereof. “We’re not seeking client-direct work,” he affirmed. “We very much are into collaborating with and supporting agencies.”
